J.R.R. Tolkien

Born

1892 · Bloemfontein, Orange Free State (now South Africa)

Roots

English; born to English parents in southern Africa

Family

Working class

His father died when he was three; his mother's family cut her off over her Catholic conversion, and she died of untreated diabetes when he was twelve. A priest became his guardian.

Education

King Edward's School, Birmingham → Exeter College, Oxford

Started with

A blank exam page

Grading papers years later, he wrote the hobbit sentence on an empty sheet — unplanned, by his own account.

Affiliations & societies

T.C.B.S. (Tea Club and Barrovian Society)Documented

A schoolboy literary fellowship at King Edward's; two of its four core members died on the Somme.

Information only — claims like these are often unverifiable and may be wrong.

The pathway

1. 1904 · age 12
   Orphaned

   Father Francis Morgan, a Catholic priest, takes charge of the brothers.

2. 1913 · age 21
   The midnight letter

   Banned from contacting Edith until 21, he writes her the night of his birthday; she breaks off an engagement to marry him.

3. 1916 · age 24
   The Somme

   Trench fever ends his front-line war; by 1918, he wrote, all but one of his close friends were dead.

4. 1925 · age 33
   Oxford professor

   Anglo-Saxon chair at 33; invents languages first, then worlds for them.

5. 1937 · age 45
   The Hobbit

   The exam-page sentence becomes a bestseller almost by accident.

6. 1954 · age 62
   The Lord of the Rings

   Twelve years in the writing; among the best-selling novels ever printed.